Did his wife (spoiler)

Richie is a lot of things, but a liar he doesn't strike me as.

There was no reason for the cop to ask his wife that question, it was really bad dialogue which in my mind means the writer was trying to drop a clue and fudged it. Yes, I do believe his wife hired Richie to kill him. Richie couldn't do it because Wilson was genuinely a nice guy. "It was something in your eyes" he said to Wilson.

Just wanted to say that even though it says it was his birthday everywhere (synopsis, boards, reviews, etc) for some reason I got the vibe that it was supposed to be "Surprise and Congratulations on Sale of the House" party. Mainly because there were no presents and the cake didn't say "Happy Birthday" and because they left him alone to go the park and finally because he didn't allude to the fact that it was his birthday at any other point in the movie. Maybe it's just me - but I totally get the feeling that the John character would have been mentioning it left it right . . . something along the lines of, "It's my birthday, I got fired, the Cell Phone store lady won't let me use the phone, I was trying to do a good deed and instead get kidnapped by a lunatic, etc."

About John's wife not recognizing Richie - after insulting her cooking skills, during the big reveal, Richie said something along the lines of, "That's true - you never laid eyes on me because you sent someone else to meet me . . ."

Richie was a non pro crazy guy hired by John's wife to kill him. She had no clue where to go get someone to do the job and she hired someone on the cheap and this is the mess she got. Somehow she survived it cuz John is such a wuss.

I don't think she hired Richie to kill her husband. People ask why she left his birthday party to take the kids to the park. Well, as I remember it, John yelled at her and snapped at the kids and pretty much drove them away.. It seemed that she had put a lot of effort into planning the party and just left at the spur of the moment when he was in a foul mood and they had words. That indicates a lack of planning as it would have been much simpler for her to just make sure she was somewhere else with the kids at that time. If she meant to kill her husband, the party was an unnecesary complication as someone else, lie a neighbor, could have placed her at the scene near the time of her husband's disappearance when she could have created an airtight alibi.

Richie could easily have been staking out the house, seen her leave, and use this knowledge to manipulate these people into distrusting each other.

Why would Richie target this couple out of the blue for his sick games? Many, if not most,serial killers pick their victims at random, stalk them and learn their secrets before acting. Maybe he followed them, noted their duplicity and decided they would be perfect subjects. Maybe he saw himself as a moral avenger, or maybe he was just a sadist who liked to play head games.

Another thing is as her character was being played, I thought I saw real love in her eyes when she brought out the cake. Yes she was having an affair but he was also. She could have done it just to get back at him or make herself feel better when it meant nothing, just two married people who loved each other but going through a difficult period in their marriage and making unfortunate choices.

I just watched this. It was pretty clear that he had been hired by her, though indirectly. I'm came here surprised to see it's even a question in some minds.

I thought it was clear that his wife hired Richie. The detective's conversation as they leave the house indicates they think so, as well.

"What does he think he's doing?"
"Something I never could."

The "something" is forgiving his wife. Of course, based on what we know about John, it could be that he's just too spineless to confront her, or it could be, based on the whistling, that he's planning to kill her.